The reserves of high grade ores on which many current chemical and metal industries are based, are fast disappearing with rapid rises in price. A major thrust of mankind therefore must be the development of economic processes to utilize abundant low-grade ores.
The aluminum and titanium industries are illustrative of such a situation insofar that high grade bauxite and titaninferous ores represent limited reserves with soaring prices. Ordinary clay provides a virtually inexhaustible reserve for both the aluminum and titanium industries.. Ore chlorination processes offer a potentially economic means to remove and recover valuable metals as volatile chlorides, but with clay for instance, a major obstacle has been the low rates of chlorination and the low yield of aluminum chloride. The present invention comprises a new, novel and needed method to greatly and economically increase chlorination reaction rates and yields of values from clay and other ores and at low temperatures.
The present invention relates to the halogenation of metallic ores to make metallic halides. More specifically, the instant invention is primarily concerned with the carbo-chlorination and displacement chlorination reactions of metallic ores in the presence of sulfur and/or one or more functionally equivalent sulfur containing compounds which serves as a conditioning agent and/or a reaction promoter whereby the rate of reaction and yield of values are enhanced.